Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities (AHSC) is a mouthful but it’s an exciting and relatively new layer of funding for affordable housing. In the city of Millbrae, it means that for the next two years, SVBC will be working with the residents of an affordable housing community to get more folks riding bikes.

But before we tell that story, SVBC first piloted this idea with a program called Pedal to Health. Originally funded by the El Camino Hospital Community Benefit Grants program, the concept was to bring a Safe Routes to Schools approach to the other side of the coin – where people live. Over the course of several years, SVBC has partnered with affordable housing developers to provide bike safety education and rides to the families that live in affordable housing communities.

Fast forward to today, and the State of California has created a grant program that furthers the type of thinking behind Pedal to Health.

The Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program offers loans and grants to affordable housing developers who partner with public agencies and nonprofits to include greenhouse gas reducing sustainable transportation components to their projects. Knowing this, SVBC has approached several developers over the years to say, hey, how about including a bike component? The Core Companies is one of the developers that fully embraced the idea. They included SVBC in their application to the State of California and were one of the first projects in San Mateo County to receive AHSC funds! The end result is that starting in Summer 2022 (upon completion and lease up of the affordable housing project) and continuing for the next two years, SVBC will be working with the residents of The Rollins, an 80-unit affordable veterans housing project located within the Gateway at Millbrae Station TOD community. What makes this even more special is that the apartments are being targeted for veterans. SVBC is excited to work with those who have served our country.

The larger project, Gateway at Millbrae, also includes market rate housing, office space, a hotel and related retail uses and is under development by Republic Urban Properties. It is the largest transit oriented community currently under construction on the West Coast.

And that’s not all on the bike front. Through the AHSC grant, the City of Millbrae will be able to provide new bike infrastructure in and around the area, which is adjacent to the BART station, including improvements to the Bay Trail.

A celebration of the development was held a couple weeks ago. Representatives of the City of Millbrae, including Mayor Ann Schneider – a huge proponent of bikes and all things green – along with the developers, The Core Companies, Republic Urban Properties, BART and the State of California all took a moment to reflect on how wonderful it is, after nearly six years, to see the project almost finished.

As a reminder, building affordable housing is nearly impossible due to community opposition and funding constraints, yet it’s a huge part of the bike movement’s ability to create bike-friendly communities. As bike advocates, we need to continue to champion affordable housing communities to ensure that they are designed and constructed in ways that make it absolutely inane to drive everywhere. Our involvement as affordable housing advocates is key to creating a built environment in which all of us can live life joyfully by bike.

SVBC is thrilled that The Core Companies included a bike component in its new community and looks forward to the program launch in the Summer of 2022.